One of the seminars at the recent Waste Expo held in Melbourne was entitled Key Waste Issues and Strategy 2022 and Beyond. Facilitated by TOMRA Cleanaway Communications and Engagement manager, Michelle Mandl-Keating, the panel took a deep dive into some of the key issues in the waste industry that will need addressing over the next 12 months.
One of the panellists was Jared Smith, a waste and sustainability engineer from the Torres Strait Island Regional Council. Smith has a whole list of challenges that he takes into consideration when thinking about the future, mainly because of the geographic outlay of his work area, which comprises 16 inhabited islands and more that 250 uninhabited locales.
The islands cover more than 42,000 square kilometres from the northern tip of Australia’s Cape York to within the reaches of Papua New Guinea. Although the population is relatively small compared to other places, the logistics involved in taking care of the island’s waste needs are eye-opening.
“Being island communities, we replicate several services,” Smith said. “There are 15 different water treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants. We also replicate waste management, which is quite limited at this point. We have faced some significant challenges as you can imagine – logistics are very complex when you’ve got 15 different communities.”
Due to the proximity to Papua New Guinea, the Torres Strait Islands are in a protected biosecurity zone, which produces another set of challenges for Smith and his team.
This includes the inability to move animal and plant matter back to mainland Australia. But that isn’t the main issue – the islands are running out of space to landfill.
“It’s definitely an interesting environment to work in,” Smith said. “In many ways, it’s rewarding because there’s so many solutions to be proposed. We’re working on a few different projects. At the moment we’re moving from island to island cleaning up legacy metal waste.”
This includes wrecked vehicles, plant and machinery, white goods and construction materials littered throughout the communities. Smith is quick to point out that a lot of the rubbish comes from contractors who come to the islands and don’t remove the waste.
Currently, the island is also burning a lot of waste due to the aforementioned lack of land.
Looking to the future, Smith wants the island to adopt more sustainable, long-term plans. What that looks like, he said, is very similar to what happens on the mainland – sorting and recycling, and possibly stewardship-type scenarios.
“That is basically the plan. We’re also talking cap flows, rehabilitating each landfill on the existing footprint,” he said. “However, will the transfer stations have all these processes and staff to manage this waste stream is a question we’re constantly asking ourselves. Then we have to compost on the islands as well because no plant matter is allowed off the islands.”
One area of concern for Smith is the lack of training available to staff. And not just in the Torres Strait Islands.
“We got a grant, so we employed a waste and biosecurity engagement co-ordinator,” he said “But part of the condition of his employment was to provide him with training and career development in waste management. I looked around, and I asked a few different technical consultants about what kind of waste management training could be provided and it turns out not much – even in a national sense. There are nationally accredited courses at certificate level, but they are limited to New South Wales.
“I’d be keen to know if anybody knows of more training opportunities out there. But it’s something that’s a big step forward for us in the Torres Strait, in being able to provide training to our staff, so that the staff know how to manage waste, and waste management.”
Another panellist was Professor Leanne Wiseman who lectures on intellectual property law at Griffith University. She was on the panel to discuss an issue that has become topical and part of the waste narrative over the past 18 months; the right to repair.
Currently some manufacturers of goods – especially electronics such as computers, smart phones and white goods – do not allow third parties to repair their products if they break down. The reason given is that the manufacturers are worried that their intellectual property will be compromised. However, cynics see it more as a cash grab by the producers to either gouge repair prices (once the product is out of warranty), or as a chance to upgrade a customer to a newer (and more expensive) version of their computer, smart phone or appliance.
Wiseman’s reasoning for being involved in the issue is more of pragmatism – making sure electronics goods last a proper lifetime so they stay out of landfills. As she pointed out, currently Australia has more than 140,000 tonnes of e-waste generated annually. She said there is a range of barriers as to why Australians can’t get their whitegoods and consumer appliances repaired.
“I don’t know if there’s anyone in this room who has any joy in replacing their washing machine, dishwasher, or refrigerator,” she said. “They’re necessary items that we have in our homes. And we know that with our parents and grandparents’ generations, once they got a fridge, it was with them for 30 or 40 years. Now when we buy a fridge, we’re lucky if it lasts for three or five years before we’ll need to replace it.”
Wiseman said that there is a whole range of barriers as to why people can’t get electronic goods repaired or reused. They range from legal to intellectual property barriers. Any smart product in a home – whether it’s a Fitbit, iPhone, tablet, or dishwasher that connects to the internet – will have software embedded in them. Once there is software involved, copyright sits over those devices.
“Manufacturers can exert incredible control over what you can do with that device,” said Wiseman. “Even though you buy your washing machine, you can’t open it up to look inside, you can’t fix it, you can’t get access to repair or service information. Because often what we hear from manufacturers is that ‘it’s our intellectual property. That’s our R&D. We can’t share it with you’.”
Back in the day, white goods would come with a repair manual and service information as to where consumers could get spare parts for a device. Now, with software embedded into the machine, users will get an error code on a washing machine or fridge or even motor vehicles and farm equipment, whereby they will not be able to repair the product.
“Anything that’s ‘smart’ will have IP sitting over it,” Wiseman said.
Intellectual property is only part of it. Then there are the physical barriers. Wiseman cited Apple, whose devices don’t have any screws in them so you can’t take a battery out and replace it. And there are simple aspects to the device – like the on/off switch or maybe a filter – that fails but cannot be replaced. It will be headed for a landfill at worst, or to a recycling facility when it still has life left in it.
Which brings us to the nub of Wiseman’s point during her speech. Producer responsibility, which is akin to putting together a product stewardship scheme for whitegoods and smart devices.
“What we don’t hear so much about is enhanced producer responsibility and putting the onus back on manufacturers who are making and designing these goods. We need to make sure that they’re made in a way whereby they can be disassembled, that spare parts are available, and repair information is freely available to the people,” Wiseman said.
She said that in the past 12 months the federal government had completed an inquiry through the Productivity Commission looking at why consumers can’t repair and reuse these types of goods in Australia. The Commission came up with a range of recommendations around manufacturer warranties. Wiseman said there’s confusion in the consumer market about when a manufacturer warranty comes into play compared to when a person’s consumer rights come into play.
There were also recommendations that there be a repairability or product durability label on a product. This is what happened recently in France, and it looks like the European Union is considering something similar. When a consumer goes to buy a toaster or washing machine, as well as finding information about whether spare parts are available, there will be information about whether users can get access to repair and service information.
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“Why shouldn’t manufacturers who make a fridge tell you how long that fridge should last, so that you can make an informed decision at that point of purchase?” said Wiseman. “There’s so much work that can be done in this space. If we can get manufacturers to design and make products in a way that batteries can be removed simply and easily by anyone with everyday tools that is a huge step in terms of the safety and the environmental effect.”
Which was a nice segue to the next speaker at the event, Libby Chapman who is the CEO of the Battery Stewardship Council. Currently, the council has about 90 per cent of the loose battery market signed up to the scheme. Chapman believes that although that is a great number, she would like the last 10 per cent to come into the fold – sooner rather than later. That is something the council will be working on over the next 12 months. So far, the scheme has collected about 900 tonnes of batteries from the 2300 drop-off points it has around the country.
“We knew it was important to make battery recycling convenient for people,” Chapman said. “And that really was a key barrier– people were not quite sure what to do with the batteries. Now they do.”
When it comes to moving forward, Chapman believes there is still work to be done in the safety space. She said the organisation wants to convey to people the safety aspects from the beginning to the end of the process. For example?
“Many people aren’t aware that overcharging batteries causes potential for fires,” she said. “We really want to encourage people not to leave their batteries too long on the charging station – just charge up the machine and then take it off the charging station. If you’ve got smaller batteries or powerful batteries, make sure that you’re taping those before you take them to your local drop-off point, because once they’re taped, there’s a smaller chance that they can short circuit and cause fires.”
Also on the panel was Shannon Mead who is the CEO of No More Butts, which, as the name suggests, is trying to attack the issue of cigarette butts, which are a litter hazard.
Mead started the charitable organisation when he calculated that there were up to one million butts littered in his Local Government Area (LGA) on a weekly basis, and just under nine billion around the country annually.
A key component of the cigarette, its filter, is in Mead’s sight. Not only is it made from cellulose acetate and therefore a problematic waste stream, but the World Health Organisation made a statement in 2022 that filters had zero health benefits, and therefore are unnecessary on cigarettes.
“The question then comes, can we actually look at future changes across all the states,” said Mead. “And in particular, now, could the federal government introduce some kind of harmonisation and initiate a ban on single-use plastic tobacco filter?. If that can’t be started for whatever reason – whether it be political or funding, or costs in terms of duties and excise disappearing – then go to a secondary consideration. That would be things around extended producer responsibility, or the user pays principle.
“In San Francisco, retailers are charged $1.05 US per packet that they sell, and that money goes to the city. It’s not a tax, it’s an abatement fee and it’s determined as such by the revenue office. It is a model that can and does work.”
While there has been a decline in smoking, there has been a marked increase in vaping. What will be seen over the next 12-18 months, according to Mead, is an increase of vaping machine e-waste such as aluminium, batteries, plastics and a range of other components.
“Now we have a quadruple whammy as a new environmental threat,” he said. “So even if we do solve the worst problem of cigarette butt litter such as tobacco filters, we now have this emerging threat. One of the things I’m asking people in the industry is, ‘are you equipped and ready to start collecting e-waste and start looking at the demographics of those who have started vaping?”
It is with that last point in mind that Mead thinks it is important to start education programs on the waste stream at schools.
“We’ve obviously got great schemes and great experiences in terms of recycling,” he said.
“There are all sorts of programs that we can leverage potentially in the future. There needs to be greater accountability for those that import products, greater visibility of once we have those products where they’re being sold so we can levy them and incorporate them into an existing program.”